


Cinder and Smoke

by Dominatrix



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly still misses him. She still wonders whether it could have ended differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cinder and Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on the atmosphere of Iron + Wine's song "Cinder and Smoke".

Molly pulverised the leaf between her trembling fingers with a torturing  slowness. She didn't like how the cracking echoed too loud and too undisturbed in her ears. But it helped her to destroy what reminded her of him. Maybe it would calm the fury which lounged in her soul. At least a bit.

_His last thouhts had been dedicated to her. Of course. How could it be different? He thought of her kind face and the way he had managed to make her smile. Though the memory hurt, he just couldn't bring it over himself to let it rot. He wasn't surprised that she left him when she found out, who - what - he really was. Actually he couldn't hold it against her. But the pain had been there nonetheless, silent, black und reckless._

The imagination that the old birch tree under which she had spoken with him for the first time was still there, faceless, without feelings and cold as ice, although he wasn't there anymore, made her tear up. It seemed impossible that anything could possibly keep on existing. The world had stopped turning for her three weeks ago. With upcoming nausea she felt how the frosty mud that had covered the leaf was now on her fingertips. She knew that the cold dirt grey would cling to the creases of her fingers like cold smoke which hangs in clothes.

_It had surprised him that he missed her. He had not thought that he would be able for such a feeling. And maybe this was the thing which he missed so about her. Maybe he had needed someone to remind him of his humanity._

She wanted to go home, but she knew that this wasn't possible. She would never be able to go home again without thinking about him. Her feet started to move, but she didn't notice. Although the air which came over her as a sharp wind was ice cold she didn't close her coat. Not even the cutting cold could make her feel something.

_He still remembered the exact moment in which she would have been supposed to break. But she hadn't. Instead, every feeling had vanished from her pale face, all signs of affection ceased in her eyes as if someone had blown out a candle._

She still sawq him everywhere, expected the jingle of his keys at the door and imagined to still feel him next to her at night. She wished that he was with her at niht, that he put his arm around her and pulled her close when she was close to despair because it was just too dark and too quiet. However, everything in her head screamed.

_"You leave my flat right now." It had been her last words to him because he had not dared to speak up against her. In the end he wished he had. Maybe it would have changed something. Maybe everything would have been different. Was it possible that a decision like this could have saved his life?_

Nothing was stronger than the wish to turn back the time. Still she asked herself if she couldn't have saved him from himself. The wish wasn't completely unselfish, no matter how strong she pretended it to be.

_He had often asked himself whether she missed him too. Not that it would make the pain easier to bear, but it gave him the deceiving security that he had maybe found someone who wasn't completely indifferent about what happened to him._

She couldn't sleep anymore. Not since he was gone comepletely and irretrievably. The way he haunted her dream made it impossible to find rest for a moment. By now she felt like a living corpse, if she felt anything at all. Everything had vanished and faded and it wasn't the first cold autumn day on which Molly asked herself whether there was really sense in waiting for spring. How was the sun supposed to shine ever again if the world was so colourless and dead?

_He had never told her what she was to him. To be exact it was of no importance at all because he had always had the feeling that she understood him anyway. Had this been the reason that he had showed her something of the other side which lingered in him like a black beast? He didn't know. Maybe he had hoped that she could soothe some of the pain the beast caused when it buried its claws in his mind and tortured him until he gave in to its blood lust, until he allowed it to take over control and he could just watch helplessly what his hands were doing there._

It would never stop, she knew that. It would never stop to agonise her with self-destructing thoughts until she saw nothing except pale shapes which she refused to accept as a reality.

_She had been his anchor, the last safety to keep him from losing himself._

The truth dropped black and acidly in her mind, filled every single of her thoughts with darkness and left her behind all on her own.

_He had known right from the start that it would end this way. Now he was alone again with his mind and the beast that devoured him from inside._

She didn't care who Jim Moriarty was. She could ignore what he had done because she knew that no hate had been in his embrace. The way he touched her had never spoken of madness, but always and just of affection.

_The metal in his hand had felt almost calmingly cool. However he had to close his fingers tight around the gun to supress the shivering._

Molly wished that there was a possibility to tell him. But she knew that it was far too late for that.

_He had fought against the darkness inside of him for a long time. It hadn't been enough._

She stared down on the grey marble stone without realising what it had been that had brought her here.

_But he would have wished that she would have been with him until his end._

It had been the last shimmer of a hope that she had just dreamed all of this, that she would wake up in his arms. Every nightmare would be bearable if it would only save Molly from the truth. But the truth echoed in her ears with a silent scream.

_Maybe she could have saved him._

It was too late.

_But it had been too late._

Jim Moriarty was dead.


End file.
